Tag: climbing shoes

Excruciating foot pain is something I’d only ever experienced before after wearing really uncomfortable heels until 3am on a night out. But that doesn’t even compare to breaking in climbing shoes!

When I was shopping for my latest pair, after my Tenaya Ra’s unexpectedly gave in (OK, it was actually well overdue, but I was still very upset!), I was already bracing myself for the pain of breaking the new ones in, which lasted a good few weeks with the previous pair.

I never thought I would get so excited about something as mundane as a crack in a rock or a well-rooted tree.

Before leading my first trad climb, this sport was mostly about pushing myself physically for me. But this time, it was all about pushing myself mentally.

Traditional climbing, or ‘trad’ for short, is a type of rock climbing that dominates the scene in the UK, where a climber must put in his or her own points of protection into a rock face while going up, and then clip the rope into these. Its European counterpart is sport climbing, where the metal bolts are already built into the wall for a climber to clip into.

“I really shouldn’t be doing this!” I thought, while hanging upside down in a tunnel and trying to push my foot into the next black foothold for balance, as a searing pain shot up my right side, again.

Sometimes, injuries happen by accident or as an unfortunate consequence of doing something inherently correct and safe, but more often than not they are exacerbated by impatience.

Impatience that stops us from warming up before jumping on a difficult or technical climb; impatience that drives us to the pub half an hour early after a day of climbing outdoors, instead of stretching; impatience that brought me to the climbing gym on a Tuesday night after a weekend of climbing, when I already knew I had an injury.